Villa La Petraia

Villa La Petraia
Location within Italy
General information
Coordinates	43°49′05.84″N 11°14′04.27″E

Villa La Petraia is one of the Medici villas in Castello, Florence, Tuscany, central Italy. It has a distinctive 19th century belvedere on the upper east terrace on axis with the view of Florence.

History

Villa La Petraia, inner court

In 1364, the "palace" of Petraia belonged to the family Brunelleschi until in 1422 Palla Strozzi bought it and expanded it by buying the surrounding land.

In the first half of the sixteenth century, the villa became the property of the Salutati, who then sold the villa to Cosimo I de' Medici in 1544, who gave it to his son, Cardinal Ferdinando in 1568.

Then from 1588, there was a decade of extensive excavation works which transformed the "stony" nature of the place (hence the name in Petraia, that is full of stones) into dramatic sequence of terraces dominated by the massive main building.

It is traditionally attributed to Bernard Buontalenti, even though the only documented certainty is the presence on site of Raphael Pagni.

Giusto Utens paintings

In 2014 a new permanent gallery at Petraia Villa Medici was opened to display the 14 surviving paintings of Medici villas by Giusto Utens (previously held by the Museo di Firenze com'era).

Further reading

• Mignani, Daniela (1995) [1991]. The Medicean Villas by Giusto Utens (2nd ed.). Florence: Arnaud. ISBN 88-8015-000-6.

External links

Polo Museale della Toscana: Firenze - Villa medicea della Petraia

Media related to Villa La Petraia at Wikimedia Commons